The one thing that we should stick to is to figure out how to become better human beings, but in order to do that we have to go to the second level which is to work on defining the palette of what a better human being is made of, and creativity is one of them.

The ongoing decrease in the number of people smoking in California is a major public health achievement. With California adults smoking 25 percent less than the rest of the nation, our state continues to benefit from lower rates of tobacco-related illnesses.

The ongoing task of debt management for the federal government will clearly be very different in the years ahead than it has been in the past, when debt was rapidly increasing, ... With $3.6 trillion in debt outstanding, even a 3 basis point (0.03 percentage point) reduction in federal borrowing costs will ultimately produce savings of more than $1 billion per year.

The only barrier to human development is ignorance, and this is not insurmountable.

The only crystal ball even more difficult to read than where one's own personal situation may be is where the country is headed and what the country's economic situation will be in 20 or 30 years.